MinoMonsters releases new version, takes aim at Pokemon fans

Apple iOS gamers who miss the Pokemon monster-battling adventures of their childhoods may come one step closer to fulfillment today with the release of an updated version of MinoMonsters.

While Pokemon’s console-based games aren’t available on the Apple operating system, plenty of imitators are. MinoMonsters, also the name of the company that develops the game, wants to become the clear leader of that group, says CEO Josh Buckley. So far, he’s raised more than $1 million from Andreessen Horowitz and other venture capitalists.

The updated title includes gameplay that brings it closer to the game it aimed to emulate by adding evolution of monsters, new boss encounters and more monsters. Pokemon, the wildly popular videogame franchise for Nintendo’s Game Boy and other platforms, boasts more than 600 different monsters with the challenge for gamers to “catch ‘em all.”
“Millions of gamers have been waiting for a Pokemon-like title to hit iOS, and we believe this release brings us much closer to that hit,” Buckley said. Now 20, he was the youngest graduate of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley incubator that has spawned companies like accomodation service Airbnb and file-sharing service Dropbox.